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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Wokeism VS. classical liberal truth-based order at the root of Online Harms bill debate

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge

You can be made a criminal as a result of someone’s emotional response to what you say or write online. A successful complainant can receive up to $20,000 for that anonymous complaint from the person complained about.

Wokeism versus the classical liberal truth-based order is what the discussion on the Online Harms Bill, C-63, is really about. Although some see it as a plot to undermine free speech, it may actually represent the legitimate view of progressives—wokeism—to promote social justice, as they see it. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers—the first woke government in the history of Canada—sincerely believe in what they are doing. C-63 is wokeism at work.

I’m not talking about the sections designed to protect children from online harm. Everyone wants that. Whether or not the various digital safety commissars are necessary is questionable, but the politicians can sort that out. I’m referring specifically to the sections allowing anyone to anonymously make a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) that someone has written or said something that is “hateful.” This is defined as causing someone to feel “detested” or “vilified.” You can be made a criminal as a result of someone’s emotional response to what you say or write online. A successful complainant can receive up to $20,000 for that anonymous complaint from the person complained about. And that person, who is now $20,000 poorer, can be ordered to pay a further $50,000 to the government after CHRC bureaucrats—appointed by the government—decide that he has hurt the feelings of the anonymous complainant.

We don’t have to imagine how this will work, because we have already seen it in action with Section 13, the previous incarnation of C-63. In one famous case, Ezra Levant, now of Rebel News, was the person complained about. He had dared to republish the infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Someone complained, and Levant basically had years of his life, and most of his money, consumed with trying to defend himself.

The other famous Section 13 case related to the Islamist issue involved author and media personality Mark Steyn. His case was just as gruelling, time consuming, and expensive. Steyn eventually won, but at great cost in time and money.

Largely as a result of these cases, Section 13 was repealed by the Harper government. What had happened is that a commission with a particular view about Islamic issues had relentlessly prosecuted two men who legitimately held different views about the subject.

And that is exactly what we can expect with this resurrected version of Section 13.

It could be on Islamic issues where people have different views. Or it could be on a thousand other issues where people have different views.

The trans issue is one. The prime minister famously tweeted “Trans women are women.” That is a view held by many people. It is one of the fundamental tenets of progressivism—wokeism. However, many do not accept that view. How many? According to Professor Eric Kaufman, one-third of Canadians accept woke views, while two-thirds reject wokeism. This same two-thirds to one-third ratio also applies in Britain and United States. The one-third fervently believe that they must remake the world according to the way they know it must be, and that the two-thirds who don’t see it yet must be brought along.

So, with this proposed legislation, we see the problem immediately. Complaints will be made to the CMHR about a trans issue, for example, against someone within the two-thirds majority of the population who do not accept that “trans women are women” and that complaint will be adjudicated by mainly Liberal appointees—appointed in large part exactly because of their progressive views—who believe that “trans women are women.” The people complained about can expect to be treated the same way Levant and Steyn were treated: namely, being forced through lengthy and expensive hearings, simply for holding the same views that two-thirds of Canadians hold.

This is an absurd result. And the trans example is just one of many that can be expected to generate complainants. What about the belief that all indigenous complaints must be believed? This is the woke view, namely that the truthfulness of stories told within indigenous communities cannot be questioned in the usual way. The most dramatic example of this odd belief is the claim that 215 indigenous children were secretly buried at the former Kamloops Residential School, in some cases with the forced help of children as young as six. We were asked to believe this highly improbable claim simply because of stories that circulated within indigenous communities.

The Trudeau Liberals immediately accepted this baseless claim. A cabinet minister, Marc Miller, even publicly called a distinguished professor of history, Jacques Rouillard a “ghoul” for simply suggesting that it is in the interest of all Canadians that excavations should be undertaken at Kamloops to determine the truth. If a cabinet minister says such things, it can safely assumed that many other people are quite willing to lodge anonymous complaints against truth seekers, like this professor.

The prime minister actually gave an explanation of how he views free speech in a candid discussion with a journalist during the truckers’ convoy protest. He said that some Canadians—those opposing vaccine mandates and other forms of excessive government control—had “unacceptable views.” They must be stopped. Only “acceptable views”—his—would be allowed.

The problem with this simplistic view is that there are a myriad of subjects upon which people hold different views. Trudeau sincerely believed that these protesters were wrong, while the protestors just as sincerely believed that he was wrong. Imposing the Emergencies Act over a difference of opinion was an extreme move. We now know that what he did was unconstitutional. Bill C-63 is very similar to the use of the Emergencies Act. Both only make sense to the woke.

The classical liberal truth-based order, so painstakingly constructed, was built on free and raucous discussion. And that is the only way it can be maintained. That free discussion of ideas—no matter how offensive, “hateful,” or irksome they might be to people with different views—is vital to our democratic governance.

The woke view, on the other hand, insists that there are certain fixed ideas, such as systemic racism, trans women are women, etc., that must be accepted by everyone, at any cost.

That’s the fight that is underway now with the Online Harms Bill. One side—the one-third—say that they know the way, and everyone must follow. The other side—the two-thirds—say that no one “knows” the way, but only by free discussion can we find it. That free discussion of ideas is messy. People will have their feelings hurt by discussions that will not always be polite. But that’s exactly what has built our advanced civilization.

Wokeism versus classical liberal truth-based order. That’s what C-63 is about.

Children must be protected. Genocide is bad. No one argues with those things. But free speech must be protected. The one-third of the population who hold “woke” views are absolutely entitled to hold and express those views. But they cannot be allowed to prevent the two-thirds who view the world differently from expressing theirs.

Canadians are a trusting people, as Kaufman points out in the above article. And while the roughly two-thirds of the population that does not accept wokeism is identical to the two-thirds in Britain and United States, Canada is different from them in that our Conservative Party has been very reluctant to push back against wokeism, as the Conservatives do in Britain and the Republicans so vigorously do in America. The odd result is that the two-thirds non-woke Canadians tend to trust the one-third woke who have captured the media and our other major institutions. We saw that at work in the government control wielded during the COVID years. Bill C-63 can only make that tendency towards submission worse, by allowing only woke views—acceptable views—to be discussed publicly.

There will be some brave free-speech martyrs, like Levant and Steyn, who will be prepared to soldier on regardless of what legislation the current ideological government passes. But most people who would be inclined to push back against woke mantras—such as “a trans woman is a woman” or “all indigenous claims must be believed”—won’t, even if they know that the claims aren’t true. Canada will become the worse for it.

Wokeism is authoritarian, and will not tolerate free speech.

As drafted, Bill C-63 definitely contravenes Article 2 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to their “political or other opinion.”

C-63, as drafted, is bad law. It must not be passed.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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COVID-19

Report Shows Politics Trumped Science on U.S. Vaccine Mandates

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

If you thought responsible science drove the bus on the pandemic response, think again. A December 2024 report by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee, Coronavirus Pandemic shows that political agendas made regulatory bodies rush vaccine approvals, mandates, and boosters, causing public distrust.

After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” praised the Trump administration’s efforts to speed up vaccine development. By contrast, the report said presidential candidate Joe Biden and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris undermined public confidence.

“[W]hy do we think the public is gonna line up to be willing to take the injection?” Joe Biden asked on September 5, 2020. This quote appeared in a Politico article titled “Harris says she wouldn’t trust Trump on any vaccine released before [the] election.”

The House report noted, “These irresponsible statements eventually proved to be outright hypocrisy less than a year later when the Biden-Harris Administration began to boldly decry all individuals who decided to forgo COVID-19 vaccinations for personal, religious, or medical reasons.”

Millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered beginning in December 2020 under an Emergency Use Authorization. This mechanism allows unapproved medical products to be used in emergency situations under certain criteria, including that there are no alternatives. The only previous EUA was for the 2004 anthrax vaccine, which was only administered to a narrow group of people.

By the time vaccines rolled out, SARS-CoV-2 had already infected 91 million Americans. The original SARS virus some 15 years prior showed that people who recovered had lasting immunity. Later, a January 2021 study of 200 participants by the La Jolla Institute of Immunology found 95 per cent of people who had contracted SARS-CoV-2 (the virus behind COVID-19) had lasting immune responses. A February 16, 2023 article by Caroline Stein in The Lancet (updated March 11, 2023) showed that contracting COVID-19 provided an immune response that was as good or better than two COVID-19 shots.

Correspondence suggests that part of the motivation for full (and not just emergency) vaccine approval was to facilitate vaccine mandates. A July 21, 2021, email from Dr. Marion Gruber, then director of vaccine reviews for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recalled that Dr. Janet Woodcock had stated that “absent a license, states cannot require mandatory vaccination.” Woodcock was the FDA’s Principal Deputy Commissioner at the time.

Sure enough, the FDA granted full vaccine approval on August 23, 2021, more than four months sooner than a normal priority process would take. Yet, five days prior, Biden made an announcement that put pressure on regulators.

On August 18, 2021, Biden announced that all Americans would have booster shots available starting the week of September 20, pending final evaluation from the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Some decision-makers objected. Dr. Marion Gruber and fellow FDA deputy director of vaccine research Dr. Philip Krause had concerns regarding the hasty timelines for approving Pfizer’s primary shots and boosters. On August 31, 2021, they announced their retirements.

According to a contemporary New York Times article, Krause and Gruber were upset about Biden’s booster announcement. The article said that “neither believed there was enough data to justify offering booster shots yet,” and that they “viewed the announcement, amplified by President Biden, as pressure on the F.D.A. to quickly authorize them.”

In The Lancet on September 13, 2021, Gruber, Krause, and 16 other scientists warned that mass boosting risked triggering myocarditis (heart inflammation) for little benefit.

“[W]idespread boosting should be undertaken only if there is clear evidence that it is appropriate,” the authors wrote. “Current evidence does not, therefore, appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high.”

Regardless, approval for the boosters arrived on schedule on September 24, 2021. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky granted this approval, but for a wider population than recommended by her advisory panel. This was only the second time in CDC history that a director had defied panel advice.

“[T]his process may have been tainted with political pressure,” the House report found.

Amidst all this, the vaccines were fully licensed. The FDA licensed the Comirnaty (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine on August 23, 2021. The very next day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo announcing a vaccine mandate for the military. Four other federal mandates followed.

“[T]he public’s perception [is] that these vaccines were approved in a hurry to satisfy a political agenda,” the House report found.

The House report condemned the dubious process and basis for these mandates. It said the mandates “ignored natural immunity, … risk of adverse events from the vaccine, as well as the fact that the vaccines don’t prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

The mandates robbed people of their livelihoods, “hollowed out our healthcare and education workforces, reduced our military readiness and recruitment, caused vaccine hesitancy, reduced trust in public health, trampled individual freedoms, deepened political divisions, and interfered in the patient-physician relationship,” the report continued.

The same could be said of Canadian vaccine mandates, as shown by the National Citizen’s Inquiry hearings on COVID-19. Unfortunately, an official federal investigation and a resulting acknowledgement do not seem forthcoming. Politicized mandates led to profits for vaccine manufacturers but left “science” with a sullied reputation.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Energy

Why Canada Must Double Down on Energy Production

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Must we cancel fossil fuels to save the earth? No.

James Warren, adjunct professor of environmental sociology at the University of Regina said so in a recent paper for the Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy, a joint effort by his university and the University of Saskatchewan. The title says it all: “Maximizing Canadian oil production and exports over the medium-term could help reduce CO2 emissions for the long-term.”

The professor admits on the face of it, his argument sounds like a “drink your way to sobriety solution.” However, he does make the defensible and factual case, pointing to Canadian oil reserves and a Scandinavian example.

Decades ago, Norway imitated the 1970’s Heritage Fund in Alberta that set aside a designated portion of the government’s petroleum revenues for an investment fund. Unlike Alberta, Norway stuck to that approach. Today, those investments are being used to develop clean energy and offer incentives to buy electric vehicles.

Norway’s two largest oil companies, Aker BP and Equinor ASA have committed $19 billion USD to develop fields in the North and Norwegian Seas. They argue that without this production, Norway would never be able to afford a green transition.

The same could be said for Canada. Warren laid out stats since 2010 that showed Canada’s oil exports contribute an average of 4.7% of the national GDP. Yet, this noteworthy amount is not nearly what it could be.

Had Trans Mountain, Northern Gateway, and Energy East pipelines been up and running at full capacity from 2015 to 2022, Warren estimates Canada would have seen $292 billion Canadian in additional export revenues. Onerous regulations, not diminished demand, are responsible for Canada’s squandered opportunities, Warren argues this must change.

So much more could be said. Southeast Asia still relies heavily on coal-fired power for its emerging industrialization, a source with twice the carbon emission intensity as natural gas. If lower global emissions are the goal, Canadian oil and natural gas exports offer less carbon-intensive options.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are more than four times what they were in 1990, during which the U.S. has seen its emissions drop. By now, China is responsible for 30% of global emissions, and the U.S. just 11%. Nevertheless, China built 95% of the world’s new coal-fired power plants in 2023. It aims for carbon neutrality by 2060, not 2050, like the rest of the world.

As of 2023, Canada contributes 1.4 percent of global GHGs, the tenth most in the world and the 15th highest per capita. Given its development and resource-based economy, this should be viewed as an impressively low amount, all spread out over a geographically diverse area and cold climate.

This stat also reveals a glaring reality: if Canada was destroyed, and every animal and human died, all industry and vehicles stopped, and every furnace and fire ceased to burn, 98.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions would remain. So for whom, or to what end, should Canada kneecap its energy production and the industry it fuels?

The only ones served by a world of minimal production is a global aristocracy whose hegemony would no longer be threatened by the accumulated wealth and influence of a growing middle class. That aristocracy is the real beneficiary of prevailing climate change narratives on what is happening in our weather, why it is happening, and how best to handle it.

Remember, another warming period occurred 1000 years ago. The Medieval Warming Period took place between 750 and 1350 AD and was warmest from 950 to 1045, affecting Europe, North America, and the North Atlantic. By some estimates, average summer temperatures in England and Central Europe were 0.7-1.4 degrees higher than now.

Was that warming due to SUVs or other man-made activity? No. Did that world collapse in a series of floods, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes? No, not in Europe at least. Crop yields grew, new cities emerged, alpine tree lines rose, and the European population more than doubled.

If the world warms again, Canada could be a big winner. In May of 2018, Nature.com published a study by Chinese and Canadian academics entitled, Northward shift of the agricultural climate zone under 21st-Century global climate change. If the band of land useful for crops shifts north, Canada would get an additional 3.1 million square kilometers of farmland by 2099.

Other computer models suggest warming temperatures would cause damaging weather. Their accuracy is debatable, but even if we concede their claims, it does not follow that energy production should drop. We would need more resilient housing to handle the storms and we cannot afford them without a robust economy powered by robust energy production. Solar, wind, and geothermal only go so far.

Whether temperatures are warming or not, Canada should continue tapping into the resources she is blessed with. Wealth is a helpful shelter in the storms of life and is no different for the storms of the planet. Canada is sitting on abundant energy and should not let dubious arguments hold back their development.

Lee Harding is Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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